New Zealand's Scott Dixon — the key ringer — drove the last 3 hours, 32 minutes remaining in North America's longest endurance race to deliver the victory at Daytona International Speedway.

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Dixon, nicknamed "The Iceman," was, as the late-great Stuart Scott would say, "as cool as the other side of the pillow." He drove flawlessly, conserved fuel and clocked off the most laps of any drivers on the team, with a total of seven-plus hours.

"Pressure is what you make of it," he said.

Like mad scientists, Ganassi and Mike Hull, the team's managing director, stirred up a potent witches brew: Dixon, a triple Indy Car champion; Tony Kanaan, the 2004 Verizon IndyCar Series champion; Jamie McMurray, the NASCAR veteran; and Kyle Larson, the guy who hated life when Ganassi asked him to come on down again for another year.

He loathed driving in the Rolex 24 last year and obviously felt much more comfortable in a stock car. Larson was the top rookie in NASCAR Sprint Cup in 2014.

But he hung tough in the wee hours of Saturday, driving three hours in the middle of the night.

"Last year was really bad," Larson said. "All year I was trying to figure out an excuse to not run this race. It's pretty amazing that I felt pressured into running this race and now I'm a winner of this event."

Ganassi and co-owner Felix Sabates now have six victories in just 12 Rolex races, a record in an event that's spanned 53 years.

Another historical footnote: McMurray became the first driver in motorsports history to win the Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400 and the Rolex 24.

"This is so unique," he said, "and I think that's probably what makes this really special."

The Ganassi crew was able to hold onto the lead with a little help thanks to a technical snafu from Apopka-based Wayne Taylor Racing.

The team had a shot to make a run at Dixon after a caution with 20 minutes remaining until they realized that Jordan Taylor was going to exceeded his allotted drive time in the car. The forced pit stop crushed those chances as Jordan was replaced by his older brother Ricky Taylor in the final nine minutes of the race.

The Taylor boys, joined by Matt Angelelli, would finish third. Action Express Racing — the defending race champions in a car driven by Christian Fittipaldi, Joao Barbosa and Sebastien Bourdais — finished second by 1.33 seconds.

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Although somebody obviously whiffed big-time on the drive-time calculations, both Jordan and Ricky expressed diplomatic tact for the circumstances.

"We were right where we wanted to be," Jordan Taylor said. "It was a perfect opportunity to make something happen. It's hard for us to complain."

The Taylor group's disappointment was magnified because they rallied to be in contention after serious electrical problems on Saturday threatened to take them out of contention and push them into also-ran status.

They were trying deliver another Rolex victory to the team a decade after their father, Wayne Taylor, won here.

"Coming back and fixing our electrical issues and working through the night, more than one night is just incredible effort by all of them," Ricky Taylor said. "I just feel bad for the guys for all that work and leading so many laps and running up front for so long. To come away with the last car on the lead lap is very disappointing."